Adaptation by NLCS Jeju Architecture

ADAPT NLCS JEJU ARCHITECTURE

ISSUE 1

ATION

INTRODUCTION Hello this this the first publication of the NLCS Jeju architecture society, the NLCS JEJU ARCHITECTURE. We aim to introduce different movements and trends within the field of architecture to our readers as well as our own creative responses. We will incorporate different projects such as CAD design as well as articles within our magazine to provide more interesting content.

This month, we investigated the theme of adaptation: how architects and architecture around the globe responded to rising global issues such as global warming or COVID-19.

Please keep tuned to our publications as our society is growing and so will our publications. We hope to bring our audience more creative, inspirational, and insightful content to entertain our audience even more.

CREDITS EDITOR

WRITER

Jinwoo Chun

Ian Jung

Siyeol Choi

Eunbae Lim

Hyeon Moon

Robbin Moon Jaeyoon Kim

DESIGNER

Sean Park

DJ Baik

Jinwoo Chun

Jaeyoon Kim

Siyeol Choi

Sean Park

Hyeon Moon

Jinwoo Chun

Eunsoo Lee

Siyeol Choi PHOTOGRAPHER Eric Hyun

PARC DE LA DISTANCE 22 th June 2021/ By Robbin Moon / Garden as a Response to COVID

The COVID pandemic caused the architecture industry to suffer. According to the American Institute of Architects, the Architectural Billings Index had declined the most in March 2020 in 25 years. However, many architecture companies which have adapted to the world with covid-19 built many architectures that respond to the pandemic.

For instance, an architecture firm called Studio Precht is one of those companies that follow the status quo. Studio Precht is famous for designing “The Farmhouse” and has made some parks and buildings after the pandemic. This writing will introduce what Studio Precht is and the way it adapted to the pandemic.

In 2013, Chris Precht and his wife Fei Precht founded their first studio called Penda in Beijing.

Afterwards, they renamed their studio to Studio Precht and worked in a countryside called Pfarrwerfen, Austria. Their works were mostly related to nature and plants. “The Farmhouse”, is the best and the most well-known example that Studio Precht has built. Their focus on the architecture was the aesthetics and the eco-friendliness of the buildings rather than the efficiency of those. By 2021, they have established sixty-one buildings, including “The Farmhouse”.

Adapting to this world in the pandemic, Studio Precht has designed a maze-like park divided by high hedges that would allow people to be outdoors while maintaining social distance. According to Precht, the project started with questions regarding the pandemic such as "What would a park look like and how would it function if it takes the rules of social distancing as a design guideline?” and “What can we learn from a space like this that still has value after the pandemic?".

The name of the park is “Parc de la Distance” which means distance park in french. Precht is said to have been greatly inspired by the French Baroque and Japanese Zen-gardens styles, which are presented in the park. Japanese Zen-garden style, the paths slowly spiral towards a centre, mixed with a wavy pattern creating its special shape and form. Also, the shape of the park looks like a handprint of a human. The garden has many entrances and many exits so that people can escape the park by walking straight. Every route is 1.5m wide. Each journey is about 600m long and takes about 20 minutes. I give a moment to think, a time to walk with nature and a while to escape from reality.

Chris Precht made this social distancing park and said “I think this pandemic has taught us that we need more places to get away… city centres should not be defined by their real-estate, but rather by their real escape. With possibilities that allow us to escape to nature, instead of banks, traffic and office blocks, city centres should be redesigned by parks, wilderness and plants. The lack of nature is an issue in many urban areas and I hope that the Parc de la Distance can offer an escape.”

In my opinion, the creative works of Precht inspired me because his level of creativity remained the same, or developed, as following the trend of different times. I am definitely going to visit both the Farmhouse and the Parc de la Distance, and I dream one day to be an inspiration to someone like Precht.

Parc De La Distance

By Studio Precht

INFLATABLE ARCHITECTURE

22 th August 2021/ By Ian Jung / Adaptation and Technology

Climate change is a rising problem of the modern world, and one of the disastrous consequences is the rise of sea level due to icebergs melting down from high temperatures. These sea-level crises caused countless buildings to collapse and resulted in thousands of people around the world losing their lives.

Perhaps this is an indication that we need a new approach to architecture for these new situations: how about floating buildings?

In Seoul, preparing for flooding has been a serious issue, as the Han River has been frequently flooded, increasingly more often in recent years. Whenever the river flooded, the structures on Han river park were the most severely damaged with most of them getting swept down the river. After 2008, Seoul city began implementing this so-called ‘floating house’ structure on facilities and convenience stores in the park to be able to use them in emergencies. A floating house structure allows houses to float when there is water with buoyancy and it has four poles on each of its corners so the structure does not flow down.

Koen Olthuis is a pioneer of inflatable architecture. This dutch architect is famously known for his architect firm Waterhouse, which builds houses on the water. His vision is to provide more affordable houses in urban areas, which are facing the sea, by expanding the city on water. His most notable project is IJburg, a district in Amsterdam, a floating island totally on its own. Due to its massive scale, IJburg has been under construction since the 1990s. Olthuis believes this type of floating house is the truly sustainable way of architecture, as we do not destroy nature by building on the sea because it does not destroy nature to build them. With the sea level rising every day, this type of architecture gets attention in places like Makoko in Nigeria or Dubai.

LIGHTWEIGHT 22 th June 2021/ By Hyeon Moon / Adaptive Reuse

Reminding the fact that the first covid case was reported on the 31st of December 2019, this occurrence was noticed only 15 months ago. However, during that 15 months, the world has dramatically changed, in terms of a person’s daily life, a school’s and workplace’s atmosphere of online culture, and the earth’s general environment. This simply tells us that the human species are “adaptive” to given situations. Then, in order to become “adaptive” relating to architecture due to coronavirus, which changes were made and how much did the modern architecture trend shift? In this article, I will introduce you to two main trends of architecture - adaptive reuse and lightweight architecture.

First of all, new architectures are built efficiently and require fewer building materials, to reduce environmental costs such as pollution or resource depletion. The idea of efficiency appeared because many architects in modern days are highly concerned with environmental harm. Thus, architects came up with a solution to reduce environmental costs: "adaptive reuse".

Adaptive reuse is performed by using the existing structure to suggest an alternative function for it; far more efficient buildings can be constructed theoretically.

For instance, covid-19 testing places or hospitals were made in many old/aging cities like Edinburgh, England. Adaptive reuse was an effective solution to rapidly create emergency facilities, especially when more hospital facilities were required during the pandemics. Similarly, in the US, a number of centres like the New Orleans Convention Center and the McCormick Place in Chicago were turned into temporary hospitals, and approximately 3000 beds could be placed in each site.

Secondly, lightweight architecture has a similar advantage with adaptive reuse, as emergency shelters can be created with minimal effort. Unlike the “adaptive reuse”, however, the lightweight architectures are mostly tent structures. Of course, there are other designs of lightweight structures like the “Form of Wander” or “Chrysalis Amphitheater” created by Marc Fornes, but in the 2020s, the lightweight design is used to build covid-19 testing places. Using this idea, an airline called the SheltAir created a “gridshell pod” that can be inflated in 8 hours to isolate covid-19 patients. This model is a popular subject of discussion because of its inexpensive and easy-to-build traits. Perhaps, this is the evidence that the world is paying great attention to the efficiency and reusability of architecture.

In conclusion, the trend in architecture is shifting towards better utility and adaptability. Rather than complex architectures with ornate designs or paints, simple and concise designs for certain purposes with long duration are much more suggested and encouraged by many architects. Therefore, I hope these motifs, demonstrated by the introduction of Adaptive Reuse and Lightweight Architecture, are globally known so that as many environmental harms are reduced.

JIPYEONGZIP 2 th May 2021/ By Justin Kim / Underground Archtecture Nowadays, in a busy and industrial society, where people live or sleep has become a very important place to relax. However, unlike people’s will, we face a lot of problems such as noise pollution, dirty grey landscapes and high electricity bills. Due to Covid - 19 and global warming, people’s interest in eco-friendly buildings and methods to decrease the use of electricity, increased rapidly. Therefore, I like to introduce an architecture with underground structure.

An architect called Byeong Soo Cho designed this architecture called Jipyeongzip. Cho studied at Montana state university and got his masters degree at Harvard University. He is famous for his minimalist and luxurious architecture. Throughout a lot of Cho’s famous architectures such as DDangzip, Southcape clubhouse and Twintree tower, I chose Jipyeongzip. Jipyeongzip was built in 2019 in Geoje, next to Busan, as a guesthouse. It takes at least four months for reservation due to its popularity. Moreover, Jipyeongzip won the 2020 KAA(Korea architecture award). However, the main reason I chose this architecture was because of its relation to the theme ‘adaptation’.

People sometimes call Jipyeongzip a space that permeates beneath the horizon or a place that no one can see. The reason for this is because Jipyeongzip is a semi-underground architecture. To be more precise, it has a semi-underground structure. Entrance of the architecture is below the ground level but the other side is a whole window, facing the South sea. Cho chose this method because he did not want his architecture to affect the beautiful horizon of Geoje island.

There are a lot of benefits of an underground building; it starts to relate to the theme. Firstly, underground structures are resistant to severe weather. Hardly any wind or tornado would affect underground structures. Secondly, thick walls and earth that surrounds the building stop both of the noise leaking out and in the building. These walls not only make the building quiet but also keeps the interior temperature constant. This feature leads to an increase in efficiency and can help significantly lower heating and cooling costs. In addition, underground buildings also provide an unobtrusive presence in the surrounding landscape, reducing landscape pollution and almost keeping the land’s original shape.

Inspired by Jipyeongzip, I made a simple model. I placed the model on a steep slope of a hill, facing the riverside (For convenience sake, I will call it X). I followed Cho’s style of using exposed concrete and covering it with grass. X has an underground structure, in order to decrease the use of electricity that is used to control the interior temperature of the building. In addition, I used raw materials such as wood planks or stones to reduce the pollution that happens during the process and to match the colours to the natural environment.

BY BYEONG SOO CHO

JIPYEONGZIP

CARBON NEGATIVE 1 th September 2021/ By Jinwoo Chun / Responses to Global Warming With global temperatures rising at an unprecedented rate, architects are also taking action among climate scientists to protect our population and planet. As a result, an ingenious construction concept is being promoted within the field of architecture: carbon negative materials.

As one of the many carbon negative materials, carbon negative concrete, like its name, has negative carbon emission. This is possible because in the production of the new concrete, carbon dioxide gas is injected into the liquid concrete mix to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Although CO2 is still emitted in this process, the amount of carbon dioxide consumed is significantly greater that from the emission; for a standard-size brick, carbon negative concrete is able to capture as much as 2kg of carbon dioxide in just 0.001539m^2. Hence, using carbon negative materials at a larger scale will have immense benefits for the environment.

Some may concern the possible drawbacks of this newly introduced material in terms of its cost efficiency or its safety. However, the process of producing carbon negative material is not that different from the conventional concrete mixes and injecting carbon dioxide into the concrete mix actually makes the bricks stronger and durable. This process can be applied to any concrete plant without any need for investments for new plants, making it seem that there is no reason not to implement carbon negative concrete in future construction projects.

As a matter of fact, many construction plans have already been applying carbon negative material i nto many large scale projects. For example, Hotel GSH, otherwise known as hotel green solution house, implemented an insulation system using wood, which is also a carbon negative material. As the first climate friendly hotel in Denmark, the hotel was appreciated by its visitors as well with a 8.1/10 ranking at booking.com. In addition, Microsoft has declared that they will turn carbon negative by 2030 and remove historic carbon emissions by 2050. As renowned companies now acknowledge and promote eco-friendly measures, the demand for carbon negative materials is likely to grow even further.

My model was inspired by the aforementioned trend of using carbon-negative concrete and wood in architecture. Though the design of the building is rather simple, the texture of the walls reflect the use of carbon neutral materials pretty closely. The model was sized around the size of an office building as carbon negative materials are mostly used by companies and larger buildings leading the trend of eco-friendly architecture. Moreover, as the building is targeted for companies or individuals concerned about the environment, I added a lot of outdoor space regardless of size. This space is apt for plants, which can also reduce carbon footprint and mitigate climate change. .

OCEANIX CITY 14 th September 2021/ By Eunsoo Lee / Floating Architecture The Oceanix City is the first floating city yet in the history of humanity. The UN is attempting to construct the city, the break time of construction being 2037. Consisting of 75 hectares, the Oceanix City provides a haven for 10,000 residents. Floating on the surface of the sea, the city is of a round shape, the platform of each structure being unique in its shape, just like lily pads.

Below the platforms are mysterious-looking cages made of rock. These rocks are called biorocks.

Biorock, a rising marine technology, grows stronger and more stabilised as time passes, and even has the potential to regenerate itself. Whilst some biorocks are placed underwater to protect corals and underwater marine life, floating biorocks play the role of reducing water pollution.

How is this possible? What if there is a storm? What if the city sinks? Short buildings and structures dodge the impacts of strong wind and gravity perfectly. None of the structures having been built taller than 7 stories, the city is able to withstand even category 5 hurricanes and will be prevented from sinking through low centre of gravity.

Not only is Oceanix City our childhood dream come true, but it is also a solution for the growing global problems of the current world. Year by year, month by month, day by day, our planet is getting hotter and hotter. Ninety percent of global cities face the problem of climate change followed by overpopulation, limitation to natural resources, and damaged environment.

The people are threatened due to lack of residential space, inability to obtain necessary natural resources and furious natural disasters aroused due to climate change whilst the environment suffers day and night, its resources being mercilessly exploited. When the climate clock points the time left for humanity on Earth only lasts around 6 years, humanity cannot simply do nothing but wait to wither away.

The UN is attempting to bring to life Oceanix City, targeting the following goals: fresh water autonomy, plant-basedfood, zero waste systems and shared mobility.

A quarter of the Earth’s population is currently face to face with water crisis - in other words, scarcity of water. In India, where the dependency on groundwater for water sources is extremely high, the people are threatened by the news of scarcity of groundwater as well. However, despite the explicit problems existing in the world, water is constantly wasted by numerous people everyday. For instance, in the UK, on average, approximately 142 litres of water are used by each person everyday and around 249 litres of water are used by each household every single day. On the other hand, in Oceanix City, the estimated amount of water used by the entire community is 580 litres per year. The significant decrease of water usage in the Oceanix city compared to current countries can be achieved through various systems implemented within the structure in order to recycle water. Public realm collection, mangrove planter, dehumidifier, atmospheric water collector, wastewater treatment, grey water treatment and freshwater pool enables this.

By over-consuming organisms, humans have become responsible for the disruption of the ecosystem. In order to recover the currently disrupted environment, the UN has included a plant-based diet system upon Oceanix City. Residents of the city will have a healthy and balanced diet, consuming fiber-nutrients, protein and carbs. Sources of these nutrients will come from outdoor farming, aeroponics, aquaponics, and ocean farming.

Overuse of non recyclable and environmentally harmful substances such as plastic threatens Earth in various aspects as well; animals and plants suffer due to haphazardly deposited wastes, leading to destruction of the environment. In Oceanix City, the following systems exist in order to achieve the goal of zero waste: Reusable packaging, washing centre, collection system, sorting center, compost garden, collection system, exchange hub, algae filtration and treatment swale.

Through the systems listed above, the city is able to achieve and maintain the goal of zero waste.

Emission of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide are significant causes of climate change and global warming. The Earth is in a desperate need of minimizing individual mobility; thus, Oceanix City is designed to provide its residents with shared mobility. 60% of mobility is active, 20% shared, 15% transit and 5% private. Instead of emitting 4.6 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the residents of the floating city will support the preservation of the environment through the usage of shared mobility.

REVIEW 1 th September 2021/ By Siyeol Choi / Ronchamp Chapel’s South Wall

Ronchamp Chapel, a pilgrimage chapel located in Ronchamp, France, is a masterpiece by Le Corbusier, the Franco-Swiss architect known for leading modern architecture. Looking at his previous works, it is difficult to understand his passion letting the architecture adapt to the surrounding environment; rather, he seems more passionate about using his construction as the manifesto for modern architecture. Ronchamp Chapel seems to be an exception, and its south wall most strongly demonstrates this. The south wall shows the ways in which Le Corbusier accepts organicism by interacting with nature. He appears to approach nature almost submissively.

The placement of openings, which is often noted as spontaneous and random, is one. According to Robert Coombs, the upper string of windows corresponds to the Virgo constellation and the lower string of windows corresponds to the Hydra constellation (Figure 7). The fact that the patterns of stars, natural elements, are employed in Le Corbusier’s work is unusual. Architecture, as a machine to live in, was seen as a force that disabled nature to manifest itself, hinted by Le Corbusier’s vision in Le Plan Voisin (1925) in which he tried to minimize the floor occupied by architecture. However, now that nature is represented through architecture, it may signify that such a perspective has been abandoned by Le Corbusier. He also manipulates sunlight through openings shaped as truncated and distorted pyramids, which seems to be his attempt to adapt to nature-oriented architecture. The windows’ orientation, along with a slightly east-tending direction of the south wall, stops the sun from being a dominant force throughout the day. For example, during the summer when the sun is the most intense, the shape of the aperture disrupts the sun’s full entry into Ronchamp. Although Le Corbusier explored the movement of the sun carefully throughout his architectural career, it had not been the force that determined his design.

It is said that he was even reluctant to accept the idea of brise soleil, which requires a design responsive to the sun before its employment in Unité d’Habitation (1952)

In conclusion, the south wall of Ronchamp Chapel seems to demonstrate Le Corbusier’s attempt to enable his architecture to match with the environment – adaptive architecture, stylistically. Nevertheless, it can also be argued that there are many other parts of Ronchamp Chapel that demonstrate Le Corbusier’s similar intentions. The reader might as well be interested in further exploring and even visiting Ronchamp Chapel for a complete understanding of the Chapel.

ALICE RAWSTHRON 8 th May 2021/ By Eunbae Lim / Ecology and Design

Alice Rawsthron is an award-winning design critic and the author of critically acclaimed books on Design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life and, most recently, Design as an Attitude. Alice is a co-founder, with Paola Antonelli, of the Design Emergency project to investigate Design's role in helping us to build a better future.

"I hope that more and more people will abandon the outdated cliches about design and recognize its potential as an agent of change that can help us to ensure that changes of every type - social, political, cultural, environmental, scientific, or whatever - are interpreted in ways that will affect us positively." - Alice Rawsthorn.

Being an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2014 and New York Times leading contributor for more than a decade, Alice had a great interest in preserving the environment. At Domus forum 2019, she enumerated four design projects with many solutions to contemporary challenges caused by the environmental crisis and climate change. Any of these different design ideas may be criticized, but it has something to teach - "We can face the emerging challenges of our world using the means of design."

Rawsthorn views the collective impact as the fundamental key in the fight against emerging. environmental issues with device impacts on humankind. Rawsthorn mentioned The Ocean Cleanup, Wecyclers, and. Nike Flyknit, among others, as examples of design projects that solve environmental issues and help change Design's perception. Individually they may have a limited impact on the climate change issue in general, but many small projects add to a collective impact, she concluded.

Rawsthorn believes that the more examples we have of design projects that address social issues, the more the public will understand the power of Design, which will also awaken the public's interest in the environment.

'There is absolutely no doubt that we need the design to address the huge problems mankind is facing,' Rawsthorn said. This requires, however, a shift in the general perception of Design, she added. Because, as long as Design is only seen as a provider of luxury products, people will not believe in the resolving power of Design. 'We have to be critical to winning the public's confidence,' Rawsthorn said, 'but it should be constructive criticism.'

'Currently, Alice is implementing a project called 'Design Emergency,' a collaborative initiative between Paola Antonelli. The platform is a response to exploring Design's impact on the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic that we are facing today and its aftermath. In spotlighting design success stories during the Covid crisis, Rawsthorn and Antonelli's mission is to insist that much of what we now know we depend on – systems, institutions, public provisions, policy programmes, the misfiring mechanics of modern societies – are poorly designed.

Alice and Paolo both believe that Design's response to COVID-19 could radically redefine public and political perceptions of Design. The ingenuity, resourcefulness, courage, dedication and generosity displayed by so many designers – professional and otherwise – has demonstrated what Design can do to change our lives for the better. The Design has been a sorely needed "good news" story for the global media throughout the pandemic. They are convinced that this will dispel the stereotypes that have impeded it for so long by proving Design's value in tackling complex social, political and ecological problems.

PHOTOGRAPHY Eric Hyun

NLCS JEJU ARCHITECTURE